Purple swan

Posted on April 4, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage oils, Doodle, Fun, Play, Purple, Sketch, Swan1 Comment

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This was a drawing experiment a few years ago. It was an ArtRage oils drawing, using colours then mainly the dry marker to subdue the strength of the original brushes. You can use a sliding scale to alter the brush sizes and strength of the metallic colours, so sometimes the colours look shiny and other times matt. It’s worth playing with different tools in apps, it increases your knowledge. I’ve found some apps really difficult to use, especially if I don’t use them very often. But I will modify what I do, and play around with things to see what results I get. I end up with a series of images, then edit out ones I don’t like. Sometimes I keep all of them so I can show how my work progresses.

Cheers x

Clouds

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blue, Chaos theory, Cloud appreciation society, Cloud types, Clouds, Design, Fractal, Layout app, Looking up, Photo, Sky, WeatherLeave a comment

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If you are bored, look up. You may be surprised at what you see. Clouds can be unicorns or dragons, fish or faces.

When I was young I would lie on my back and look up at the sky. Watching the clouds rush with rapidity or drift with stately slowness. Like the galleons I drew in my school exercise books. Then it was pirates racing to catch treasure ships.

Thunder clouds were mountains, or giant anvils, sometimes clouds looked like waves on the sea, or hills and beaches.

I gradually learnt a few of the names of clouds, cirrus, cumulo nimbus, stratus. Each had a wonderful ring to them. Magical beauty flying high over head.

Later I learned a bit about chaos theory, and fractals. How if you magnify a bit of a cloud, the close up looks like the larger image. I heard songs like Cloudbusting by Kate Bush, and about clouds being seeded to make rain fall.

You see they are interesting creatures, even if they are not mythical beasts.

So, if you are interested, look up the cloud appreciation society. They have a page on Facebook. Their founder set up a group which people can join. They have a cloud of the month, and sometimes send out a newsletter.

With climate change, and the increase in severity of the weather, its interesting to find out how water vapour can be so beautiful and yet so wild.

Playing

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage oils, Ball of wool, Cat, Doodle, Drawing, Life, ThinkingLeave a comment

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Grab a stylus and doodle your cat. I used ArtRage oils to draw this. I didn’t have enough memory on my phone so I deleted it, but I’ve uploaded it onto another device. So maybe I can get on and do a few more digital drawings.

Lockdown, I hope it means I will be doing more art, if I can get my mojo back.

Does being shut for the duration mean you’ve lost yours too or are you being brilliantly creative?

Stay indoors, stay safe…. X

Lifeline

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white, Colourised, Design, Hand, Lifeline, Photo copy, Photos hopLeave a comment

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I don’t remember when I did this but I found it on my camera so I thought I would share it.

I remember it was taken from a black and white photo of my hand, and then I scanned it and manipulated it in photo shop.

It was called lifeline. I don’t know where it is now. It just seems appropriate for the situation at the moment.

Today I’m taking stock

Posted on April 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Art supplies, Canvas, Drawing, Easles, Paints, Sketch, Sketching, Stock taking, Talking stock, Urban Sketchers4 Comments

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Mid way through our thirty day challenge in Urban Sketchers Stoke-on-Trent. The subject was ‘taking stock’.

In front of me on the floor is a lovely carrier my friend sent me for Christmas. Its covered in decoupage pictures of me and my friend from years ago, and little cartoons drawn on top of the photos. The box contains all by little bottles of metallic acrylic paints, gold, silver, copper and bronze, but also metallic red, blue, green and brown. There is something nice about adding a bit of sparkle. In it too are packets of brushes, cheap but strong. Finally I have four or five tiny canvases on easle. They were going to be the centerpiece of my craft stall this spring. Instead they lie their forlorn, still wrapped in plastic, waiting for me to find inspiration in these bleak times.

I must paint and keep busy. But all my time is taken up by social media!

Today’s sky

Posted on April 1, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Buildings, Drawing, Grey sky, Sketch, Sky, Staffordshire, Urban Sketchers, Usk Stoke-on-Trent, View2 Comments

The day the urban sketchers challenge was to draw the sky, it was grey and cloudy! Instead of swirling or feathery clouds we got a grey duvet closing in the light. At one second while I was drawing the sun shone through, but while I tried to catch the orange colour on the edges of the clouds the gap had closed and all was grey again! I tried to make the best of the view by drawing the outbuilding next door and a bit of vegetation (privet bush).

So hopefully a bit more sun will shine tomorrow.

Fish

Posted on March 31, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Doodle, Drawing, Etruria, Etruria Artists, Fish, Fun, Project, Sketching, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

I’m in another Art group called Etruria Artists. We usually meet on a Thursday but because we are in lockdown we are trying to keep going by doing weekly projects. I was interested in drawing a fish or fishes and this drawing was the result. I tried to show the way water moves and ripples. The fish is a bit weird I’m afraid. Let me know if you have any projects on the go…

Pigeon drawing

Posted on March 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage oils, Courses, Design, Digital drawing, Drawing, Fun, Illustration, LearningLeave a comment

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I think this was from 2016, its a drawing usin th ArtRage oils app. I’m trying to find out about an illustration course I can do on line. It is probably too late for me to do it, I don’t know if there is any funding available, but I need to use my brain! Once this corona virus has gone I want to free my mind. I love drawing and experimenting, so why not?

Exercise

Posted on March 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Climbing, Drawing, Exercise, Fun, Humour, Sketching, Staffordshire, Stairs, Urban Sketchers, Usk Stoke-on-TrentLeave a comment

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Today’s challenge, draw an exercise you are doing to stay healthy. I coukd have added my feet at the top, but I was being realistic (in both the descriptive and actual) definitions of the word, I just drew the stairs. I guess this is a physical as well as artistic challenge.

Sitting on my bottom all day is not doing my health any good. Off to walk up and down ten times

Today’s drawings

Posted on March 27, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Brush pen, Challenge, Cyclamen, Drawing, Garden, Gardening, Life, Narcissi, Sketching, Social isolation, Stoke-on trent, Stray cat, Tete-a-tete, Usk Stoke-on-TrentLeave a comment

Those of you who follow my blog know I’ve been drawing my surroundings from the safety of my own home.

Today’s challenge was gardening. I chose to draw some pots and a flower bed in a sparkly amathyst colour brush pen. It includes cyclamen, tete-a-tete narcissi and foliage from geraniums and poppy plants. The sun was shining again today, but there was a bitterly cold wind, not helped by the neighbours behind us that had cut down two trees that had acted as a windbreak.

The second drawing is a quick sketch of the stray cat, Woody, who is doing fine sleeping in the shed and roaming the garden by day.

Thanks USK Stoke-on-Trent for the challenge x

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Art